Barking Mad (Sirius/OC)

A silent storm inside me

This chapter is a bit of a mess, sorry! What do you think about the new cover? I had a lot of fun redoing it!

Chapter 47

There's a silent storm inside me,

Looking for a home. 

I hope that someone's going to find me,

And say that I belong.

~ Silent Storm - Carl Espen

Something was terribly wrong, I thought as I stared at my own reflection in the mirror. The brush in my hand fell to the ground with a loud crash. I stared wide-eyed at myself as I tried to analyze what it was that had gotten my panties in a twist.

There was this feeling of dread pooling in my stomach that made goose bumps rise on my arms and legs, even though it was scorching hot outside which was a rarity all on itself.

I bit my lip when my eyes finally locked on a little boy standing in the doorway of the girls' dormitory.

I turned around slowly, staring at him in wonder. His hair was fair and his green eyes were focused solely on me. The boy in front of me had recently been in contact with death. That was ridiculous, I told myself. I couldn't know such a thing and I could only sense death before the act actually took place.

Nonetheless my instinct told me that it was this boy that was the cause of the uneasiness that had suddenly befallen me. I moved forward and he took a step back, making me stop almost immediately.

"Who are you?" I asked him cautiously, wondering where the boy came from. He couldn't be much older than fourteen, I thought. My eyes finally focused on the splash of red on his robes and I froze.

"Are you Nika Schmidt?" the boy asked me without a word, looking around wearily when a door slammed shut somewhere below us.

"I am," I replied slowly. "Who are you, boy? And how did you get in here?" Because I was quite certain that he was not an orphan in this orphanage. Weeks had passed since I left Hogwarts and I was quite certain that I would have noticed it if there had been a new addition to the "team".

"My name's Tobias, Mademoiselle," he said strongly, holding his chin up high even though I could see how his shoulders started to shake. "Tobias Selwyn."

One of the Twenty-Eight, I thought shakily. What was a pureblood from an extensive, wealthy family and reeking of death doing in this orphanage?

Tobias took a couple of steps sideways, seemingly to regain his balance. He held out a letter for me. "I was given this for you," he whispered, before his eyes rolled back in his head and the letter dropped from his hands. I was barely quick enough to catch him before he hit the wooden floor.

"Witch Esther!" I screamed, with the boy in my arms. "Witch Tina!"

He wasn't going to die, I told myself, I would have screamed otherwise. It was only when I tried to carry him out of the dorms that I heard it. Drip. Drip.

I looked down at Tobias and screamed again, horrified at what I saw. My arms were already coated in red from his wounds. "Merlin," I swore as I hurried out of the dorm, holding the boy for dear life.

"Sister Esther," I said, relieved when I heard footsteps racing towards me. I stared at her and the other wide-eyed children gazed right back at me. And then I Screamed.